Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
CYAN
The front door creaked open before Cyan had a chance to knock, and the face that greeted him took him back to a time when he and Faera were just kids. The resemblance was uncanny—his sister’s jawline, the same deep-set eyes. For a moment, Cyan’s heart skipped a beat, his mind playing tricks on him. But this woman wasn’t Faera.
“Can I help you?” The woman’s gray eyes narrowed with uncertain recognition. “Do I… know you?” Her attention shifted behind him, to Elaina.
“My name is Cyan Orlogsson,” he said quietly. “I used to live here. With my parents and my sister. Faera.”
“It’s… you ?” The woman’s brow creased, then her expression shifted to something altogether more awestruck. “Faera left diaries about you…” Her voice cracked. “She was so sure you’d come back someday, but… we thought… It’s like seeing a ghost.”
“Sorry I’m late.” Cyan smiled wryly.
Before he could say more, the woman pulled him into a tight embrace, full of the warmth that Cyan couldn’t seem to muster. He stood stiffly for a moment before returning the gesture.
When she finally stepped back, the woman’s eyes glistened with emotion.
“You’re really here,” she breathed. “All the stories… We never thought… I apologize.” She caught herself. “I am Nila Orlogsson. Faera was my great-great grandmother.”
“She’s gone?”
“Many years ago.” She watched him with an understanding. “She lived a full life. She passed peacefully. But you—you’ve come back.”
Cyan swallowed hard. “The wormhole, it takes years away. Many years…”
Nila nodded. Nobody knew exactly how the wormholes worked, but everyone knew their effect. Once you went into one, you would never see your loved ones again. The heaviest burden in the universe to carry.
He glanced back at Elaina, remembering himself. “This is my… This is Elaina.”
Something cooled in her eyes. But she stepped forward and clasped her hand to the side of her neck in a customary greeting from her quadrant.
“They shake hands here,” Cyan told her in Universal, motioning to his niece’s outstretched hand.
“Shake?”
“Yes. You grasp it. Like this.” Cyan took Nila’s hand, demonstrating the gesture. “Elaina comes from very far away,” he explained in Gaian.
“I understand.” Nila nodded with a smile. Her brows shot up when Elaina took the handshake in a steel-firm grip. “You’re a strong one! Pleasure.”
Elaina looked between her and Cyan, and he was about to translate, but she nodded and said, “Thank you,” in accented Gaian .
Cyan stared. “You speak Gaian?”
“No.” Elaina shook her head. “I’m trying to speak Gaian.”
“Since when?”
“Since you told me you might want to come back here someday.”
He told her that? He didn’t even remember, nor realize how much she’d cared, or for how long. How hadn’t he noticed?
Woodsmoke and charred meat flooded his senses as he stepped deeper into his parents’ home. His boots scraped across wooden floorboards, the same ones he’d run across as a boy, only polished and re-oiled.
He had thought this house would feel empty, haunted by ghosts of a future he abandoned when he followed what he thought was the sword’s fated pull to Earendel. Instead, it was alive.
Laughter drifted in from the room that had once been the kitchen. The scent of cooked food permeated the air, herbs drying in bundles above the hearth. The house breathed.
His great-great-niece shouted something, likely beckoning the others, but Cyan wasn’t listening. He scanned the carbon and wood melded walls, the classic Gaian furniture. All traces of a life he’d left behind.
Everything in this house was a reminder of what he couldn’t protect. His family’s descendants lived their lives unaware that the world was on the verge of collapse. And he’d come back from his ‘fated’ mission with nothing to show for it but a toy sword and the realization that all he ever did was run .
“You’re the Uncle Cyan!” A boy of no more than ten rushed up to him, wide-eyed. “Are you really a swordmaster like in Nonna’s stories? Did you fight aliens?”
“Something like that,” Cyan muttered, unsure how to explain that he was anything but a hero.
Elaina chuckled softly at his side. She understood more than he’d ever expected.
The boy’s face lit up. “Can I see your sword?” he asked eagerly, glancing at the hilt protruding over Cyan’s shoulder.
“No.” He stepped back. “It’s not for children.”
The boy’s face fell, and Cyan realized he’d been perhaps gruffer than warranted with the child.
Nila was quick to smooth over the moment. “Maybe another time, Daniel,” she said gently, steering her son back toward the kitchen. “Come, let’s eat.”